


Batman Beyond: Trial by Fire

by Recnepsrc



Category: Batman Beyond, Batman: The Animated Series, DC Animated Universe, Justice League & Justice League Unlimited (Cartoons)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, DC Animated Universe - Freeform, DC comics - Freeform, DC universe - Freeform, Gen, Mystery, Not Canon Compliant, Superheroes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-17
Updated: 2016-08-18
Packaged: 2018-08-09 07:15:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7791928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Recnepsrc/pseuds/Recnepsrc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Terry McGinnis' second year as Batman, he feels ready for anything- until a threat more ancient than Gotham city itself comes to town. Old scars, old flames and old friends come back to haunt our heroes, but new allies are coming out of the woodwork too. Will Terry be able to stop this seemingly insurmountable threat, or will his friends and family pay the price of failure? Find out in Batman Beyond: Trial by Fire!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Watchful Protector

_Another cold December in Gotham,_ thinks the old man staring at the batcomputer. _Kid’s got to be freezing out there. Good. Builds character._ He picks up a headset and puts it on, moving the microphone up to his mouth.

“Any sign of the Jokerz yet?” He growls. The voice on the other end comes through clear and full of youthful sarcasm.

“Not yet, Bruce. Give it time,” He shoots back, . “I thought you were supposed to be the patient one here.” He puts a pair of electronic binoculars to his eyes, scanning the area for disturbances.

Bruce laughs the comment off. “Just find them and bring them in.”

Terry continues scanning the area, going to infra-red vision to get a closer look into things, but turns up nothing. “I don’t think they’re here, boss. I’m gonna pack in and-” He is interrupted by an explosion several blocks away, followed by a paramilitary vehicle tearing past him, quickly pulling his cowl on and climbs into the Batmobile, firing up the turbines and taking off. Bruce grins and leans back in his chair.

“What’d I tell you?” Terry can almost hear the old man saying “I told you so.”

“Oh, shut up.” Terry replies. The Batmobile gives chase, closing in on the tank-like bomber in front of him fairly quickly. He sets the craft to auto-pilot and leaps onto the enemy vehicle.

Suddenly, a huge, muscled man leaps to the roof with a mallet, swinging it at Terry. Terry expertly leans back, falling onto his hands and kicking the goon in one expertly-executed maneuver. The man staggers back, holding his now-bleeding nose.

He looks at his hand, examining the blood. “Ha, you’re pretty strong for such a scrawny punk!”

Terry grins, moving to a battle stance. “I’m full of surprises.” He leaps into the air, delivering two swift kicks into the thug’s forehead, knocking him out. Terry grabs magnetic handcuffs from his utility belt and straps the criminal to the vehicle.

He runs to the hatch on the roof, attaching an explosive and blowing it open. Jumping inside, he throws two batarangs at two thugs, taking each one out in a single stroke. He runs to the vehicle’s cockpit, where one of the two pilots pulls a gun and begins firing at Terry’s head. He ducks behind cover, pulling another batarang from his belt. He knows that he won’t be able to get back up and throw it, or he’ll wind up dead. He decides to take a gamble, eyeing the wall opposite the cretin.  
“Here’s to hoping this works,” He says out loud to himself. Throwing the batarang, it ricochets off the wall, back across the room and scrapes the man’s temple, signaled by a loud shout. Terry gets back up and leaps over the cover, ready for action, but the bleeding clown pistol whips him, sending him back. Suddenly, the man turns his gun on the pilot.

“Don’t make another move, bat!” He shouts, his hand shaking nervously. Terry eyes him up, scanning for blindspots. He dives at the goon, who shoots the pilot in the head, killing him instantly. 

“NO!” Terry shouts. He punches the thug in the face, grabbing his collar. The man shoots Terry a sly grin.

“Ha! Now you’ve screwed us all, Batman! We’re all gonna die on this bird!” Terry responds by delivering a knockout punch into the clown’s jaw. He throws the pilot’s body out of the chair and jumps into it himself. He turns on his communicator to talk to Bruce.

“Boss, we’ve got a problem!” He calls out.

“That being?” Bruce calmly replies.

“I don’t know how to fly a freakin’ bomber!” Terry shouts, grabbing the vehicle’s yoke and pulling up to avoid a building. Soaring straight up to the sky, Bruce reads off the vehicle’s schematic.

“To your left, there should be a keypad with every button lit up red except one.”

“The blue one?”

“Yes. Press it.”

Upon pressing the button, the plane’s turbines shut off immediately. As he falls back to Earth, Terry shouts across the line.

“Okay, what the hell _now!?_ ”

“Don’t yell at me, boy.” Bruce growls. “There should be a row of switches, directly above you.” Terry snaps his head back to look. “Flip only the first, second and fourth switches.”

As he does this, the plane lurches back to life, slowing down and leveling itself with the ground. 

“Last step. There’s a lever in front of you labeled ‘landing gear.’ Pull it.”

Finally, the plane comes to rest on the ground. Terry opens the cockpit, seeing the police surround the vehicle, and flies out towards the batmobile and into its bottom hatch. He flies off into the night, cloaking the car all the while. He lands on a roof a mile away and climbs out to look over the city. He hangs his head sadly.

“Something bothering you?” Bruce’s voice comes into his ear.

Terry takes a long moment to reply. “I- I let that guy die, Bruce.” He says solemnly. “That creep shot him- shot his _own friend_ \- and I wasn’t fast enough to stop him.”

“I made mistakes when I started too, Terry. I lost good people. But think of how many you saved by piloting that plane out of danger. I’ve only known a few people who could travel faster than bullets, and they wouldn’t have stopped him either.”

 

Terry smiles. “Thanks, boss. That’s-” He’s interrupted by a knife flying past his head. He whips his body around to find his attacker and sees him perched atop an air vent. 

“Bruce, we’ve got company.”

He’s hard to describe- A muscular body, covered in weapons and heavily armored. His head looks something like a large bird’s, symmetrical and with two glowing, piercing yellow eyes. Terry pulls a batarang from his belt and enters a battle stance. The figure raises his arm and points a knife at Terry.

 **“BATMAN, THE COURT OF OWLS HAS SENTENCED YOU TO DEATH!”** It calls out. 

“Well, that’s not good.” Terry says out loud, to nobody in particular.


	2. Hide and Seek

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A mysterious enemy has appeared and Terry is in for one hell of a fight! What tricks does this foe have up their sleeves?

Terry begins inching back towards the batmobile, batarang still in hand. His birdlike attacker sits eerily still on his perch, staring at him with eyes like none he’s ever seen. Terry tilts his head down to whisper into his communicator.

“Boss, any idea what that thing is?” He murmurs.

“I have no idea;” Bruce replies. “I’ve got nothing in my files on him, and the ‘Court of Owls’ isn’t ringing any bells in any criminal database. Switch to thermal, see who we’re dealing with.”

Terry presses the side of his cowl, entering a predator-like view of the area’s thermals. However, in doing this, he sees the attacker disappear into the surrounding snow and sky. Like he wasn’t even there. Like he wasn’t _alive._ Bruce could see (or rather _not_ see) it too.

“What the hell is that thing?” Terry growls. Suddenly, the creature leaps from its perch and swings a broad knife at Terry’s throat. Terry punches it off, sending it flying backwards into a flip. He throws his batarang, the creature blocking it with the knife. He leaps into a flying kick, only to have the creature grab his leg and throw him across the roof into an air vent, landing with a loud thump. Getting up quickly, he sees the it running toward him at full speed, knife in hand. Terry ducks back down and the foe sails over him, throwing the knife into his shoulder. Terry yelps in pain, but the armor takes most of the knife for him.

Suddenly, the assailant tackles Terry and pins him to the ground from behind. Its face gets close to his own, but he can’t hear it breathing. He can see it more clearly now; It’s like an enormous leather owl, with enormous goggles for eyes. It looks like it was made in the 19th century, like it came before Bruce, or even his father before him, decked out in brass, inlaid carvings, and gold accents. It speaks in a horrible, gravelly, toxic voice.

“Have you any last words, Batman?” It whispers. Terry reaches down to his belt and presses a button. This activates an electrical charge, shocking the creature and knocking it off of him, sending it into a series of spasms and grunts. Terry stands back up, deactivating the charge.

“Yeah: Never corner a bat!” He smirks. The creature stands slowly, leading into a run and leaping off of the tower, but not before Terry grabs one of its knives. It falls, story by story, into the snowy night below, trying to disappear. Terry quickly gives chase, diving after it and deploying his glider pack to keep up. He sees it grappling away several blocks ahead, rounding a corner. He activates his jets, accelerating to breakneck speeds and tailing it from a distance, so as to not give himself away. Rounding another corner, the creature has disappeared. Terry lands on a balcony and scans the area with his binoculars. 

“Where could he have gone?” He asks Bruce.

“No clue,” The elder man replies calmly. “But you’ve got to find him. We need to know about this ‘court’ of his.”

Bruce’s mind, however calm he appears, is racing. He knows he’s heard that name before, Court of Owls. _Where have I heard that before?_ He ponders. _I’m forgetting things in my old age._

Suddenly, Terry hears something. Turning around, he sees his attacker from before, standing with its hands behind his back. _Gotcha!_ He thinks, almost out loud. He tackles the foe, pinning it to the ground and ripping off its mask to reveal a ghoulish, grey face.

“Who the hell are you, and why are you attacking me!?” He shouts. The attacker’s lifeless eyes stare into the depths of his mind. Suddenly, it pulls out a grenade from behind its back and pulls the pin.

“The court of Owls has sentenced you to death,” It growls, “And we must all serve our sentence.”

Terry, thinking quickly, leaps back off of the balcony just before the grenade explodes, taking his attacker (and part of the balcony) with it. Flying back to the batmobile, he hears Bruce come across again.

“Terry, you alright?” There’s actual concern in his voice. Not often that this happens.

“I’m fine, just got some interference ‘cause of the weather.” He reassures the old man. “I managed to get ahold of that creep’s mask. I’ll bring it in so we can give it a look.

Bruce leans back in his chair and smiles. “Good work, son. Don’t get cocky.”

 

Half an hour later, the batmobile pulls into the cave, hissing to a slow stop and settling down. Bruce hobbles over to the car to look at what Terry’s brought home. Taking off his own cowl, he hands the aging hero the stolen mask. Raising it to look at it, he grimaces, noting its horrid smell. Terry takes it from his hands and looks down at it.

“Yeah, I noticed that on the ride here. Checked it for poison, but nothing came up positive. I guess it just stinks like sweaty leather.” He smirks.

Bruce gives him an annoyed look. They take it over to the cryptographic analyzer and scan it, giving them a model as detailed as the real thing, adding microscopic views and molecular scans. Something gets highlighted on the screen- a nearly-invisible stain on the front of the inside.

“No wonder it stinks,” Bruce murmurs, “It’s been sitting on top of rotting flesh for days.”

Terry takes a step forward. “Wait a sec,” He chimes. “Are you saying that guy I just fought was a zombie?”

Bruce turns his chair to face the boy. “It’s entirely possible. I’m also reading chemical compounds similar to the water in the Lazarus Pit.” He gestures to a chemical diagram on the screen. “And I did some research on the so-called ‘Court of Owls’ our friend here was talking about.”

“And?”

“I’ve come up with two possibilities. One is the old nursery rhyme, the other-”

“Nursery rhyme?” Terry interjects.

“Don’t interrupt me.” Bruce snaps. “And yes, the nursery rhyme. Didn’t your mother ever read you that one when you were a kid?”

“Guess not.”

Bruce stands from his chair, looking past Terry and into the darkness of the batcave, searching his mind for the old tale.

_“Beware the court of owls, that watches all the time,  
Ruling Gotham from a shadowed perch, behind granite and lime.  
They watch you at your hearth, they watch you in your bed,  
Speak not a whispered word of them or they’ll send the Talon for your head.”_

Terry looks at him in awe.

“...Or something to that effect.” He finishes.

Terry looks the mask in the eyes. “I guess that makes this guy the Talon.”

Bruce takes the mask from his hands. “One can assume. And upon further investigation, I found some very sparse information on the court themselves.” He taps a key on the computer, and an image of people in white bird masks appears. “They’re a sort of secret society of rich elites. Legend says that they control everything in Gotham from behind the scenes, but there’s also very little proof of their existence. This mask may be exactly what we need to find more information.”

Just as Terry tries to speak up, an alert comes up on the computer screen reporting a public disturbance. Tapping a few keys, the view shifts to security cameras in the area, showing a teenager in blue armor walking through the street.

“The Court will wait. Go check that out.” Bruce says.

Grinning, Terry pulls the cowl back on and runs over to the Batmobile. “I thought you’d never ask!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second chapter! The rest of this story will have a slower update schedule.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for checking out my work! I'd appreciate any constructive criticism anyone can offer, and leave a kudos if you liked it. I plan on making this an ongoing series.


End file.
